Staff Reporter :
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has expressed her discomfort over the visit of BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia’s Gulshan office on Saturday night terming the whole episode ‘insulting’.
“I’ve to return from outside the gate…It is insulting. They might show a little bit courtesy! But they didn’t do it!” the PM expressed her astonishment over the incident when talking with her cabinet colleagues in the regular cabinet meeting at Secretariat on Monday.
At first, the issue was raised by State Minister for Labour and Employment Ministry Mujibul Hoque Chunnu.
According to several ministers, the PM taking the issue had said that there were several senior leaders of BNP who could play a role in this regard. “There were several senior BNP men. We have seen the faces of those leaders. They [senior leaders] could talk with us.”
The Premier continued: “I went there as a mother to share the sorrow of another mother. I didn’t go there to do politics. Such kind of behaviour was unexpected.”
At that time some ministers referred to the comments of BNP leader Barrister Moudud Ahmed and said the PM was right making a trip to Khaleda’s office.
BNP standing committee member Barrister Moudud Ahmed had said that it was wrong not to show proper etiquette to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina when she had been at BNP Chief Khaleda Zia’s Gulshan office.”It had not been right not to show proper courtesy to the Prime Minister,” he said on Sunday night.
Moudud, however, said Khaleda Zia was completely in the dark about the PM’s arrival as she was almost unconscious at that time. “We couldn’t approach her as the door was closed,” he said.
Moudud also said the main gate of the office had been under lock and key against the opinions of the senior BNP leaders.
When the PM reached the spot, BNP Chairperson’s Special Assistant Shimul Biswas conveyed the message to PM’s special assistant Mahbubul Hoque Shakil that Khaleda was asleep after taking a sedative dose to control the shock.
